Hannes Wolf scored on a stunning 70th-minute strike and New York City FC rallied to a 3-1 victory over the nine-man Chicago Fire on Sunday.
Halftime substitute Mounsef Bakrar leveled earlier in the second half to help New York City FC (7-5-3, 24 points) complete consecutive home wins and their fourth in five contests on their own turf.
Alonso Martinez added his eighth goal of the season from the penalty spot after a late foul that resulted in a second yellow card for Chicago defender Dje D’Avilla.
Replays indicated D’Avilla got the ball on his challenge, but referee Rosendo Mendoza stuck with his original decision after consulting the replay monitor.
Philip Zinckernagel scored early for Chicago (5-5-4, 19 points), which started brightly but was reduced to 10 men in the 31st minute when midfielder Brian Gutierrez directed an elbow toward City’s Aiden O’Neill, prompting Mendoza to immediately reach for his red card.
That set in motion the sequence of events leading to the Fire’s first loss in six matches across all competitions.
Wolf was involved in the attack down the left that led to NYCFC’s equalizer, connecting with Justin Haak before Haak’s low cross found Bakrar for a simple tap-in in the 58th minute.
Twelve minutes later, Wolf provided a moment of individual brilliance for his fourth goal of the campaign.
After reaching a loose ball beyond the left side of the penalty area, Wolf cut back to his right, eluded defender Leonardo Barroso and then curled a right-footed strike beyond the diving Chris Brady and into the bottom-right corner.
Zinckernagel’s fifth goal came during a bright start for Chicago, which had scored 13 times in its last four games.
Fullback Andrew Gutman began the move with a cross-field pass to find Jonathan Dean wide right, and Dean slotted a pass back to the run of Zinckernagel up the middle, who completed the play with an excellent shot to beat Matt Freese to the bottom-left corner.
Before Gutierrez’s ejection, Gutman appeared to give the Fire a second goal, but the play was correctly ruled offside.
–Field Level Media
